If you’re a first-time founder in Africa with no Big Tech pedigree or international passport, 2025 is shaping up to be a tough year to raise venture capital. A new analysis of all the major funding deals in the first half of the year reveals an ecosystem where investors, spooked by global economic headwinds, are retreating to the perceived safety of well-worn patterns.

The data, compiled by Launch Base Africa, shows a clear flight to safety. VCs are not just betting on ideas; they are betting on resumes. The message is simple: in a tight market, it’s the founder, not the pitch deck, that gets funded. And investors have a very specific checklist for what a “fundable” founder looks like.

For anyone who is an outsider, the fundraising route is looking less like a highway and more like a private, guarded road.

The Anatomy of a “Fundable” Founder 

An analysis of the deals shows that if you don’t fit into one of three neat boxes, you might as well be invisible. Investors, it seems, love a good archetype.

1. The Repeat Offender: This is the founder who has built and, preferably, sold a startup before. For an investor, backing a serial entrepreneur is the equivalent of betting on a horse that has already won the race once. It’s the lowest-risk bet on the continent.

• Case in Point: The colossal $137.2m debt facility raised by Wave (Senegal) wasn’t just about mobile money. It was about its founders, Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk, who had already built and exited Sendwave. Their track record did the talking.

2. The Graduate: This founder comes with a pre-approved stamp of quality from a globally recognised institution — either a tech giant or a successful African unicorn.

• The ‘Mafia’ Effect: Experience at a local champion like Jumia, OPay, or Interswitch is as good as gold. The founders of Kapu (Kenya) are all ex-Jumia executives, while the team behind Nigerian fintech powerhouse Moniepoint were forged at Interswitch. They didn’t just learn how to scale; they brought a network with them.
• Big Tech Alumni: A stint at Google, Meta, Uber, or McKinsey on your LinkedIn profile is an investor magnet. It signals you speak their language. KERA Health’s founder, Moustapha Cissé, is an ex-Google and ex-Facebook AI researcher, while Lori Systems’ co-founder, Jean-Claude Homawoo, is an ex-Google Product Manager.

3. The Diplomat (The Mixed-Nationality Dream Team): This is the potent cocktail of a local founder, who knows the market inside out, paired with an expatriate founder, who has the international network and fundraising playbook down pat. It’s the best of both worlds, and investors can’t get enough.

• Case in Point: Liquify (Ghana) was founded by a Ukrainian and a Ghanaian, both with CVs from top global banks. They combined deep local financial knowledge with global operational standards.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The data from these startups paints a stark picture of this pattern matching. If you’re building a “fundable” profile, these are the stats to beat:

• 52% of funded startups had all-native founding teams, a figure heavily driven by the mature ecosystems of Egypt and Nigeria.
• A staggering 48% had at least one founder with previous experience at a major global tech, finance, or consulting firm.
• 40% were led by at least one serial entrepreneur.
• 28% of teams were a mixed-nationality blend of local and foreign talent.

The takeaway is clear: while being local is common, what truly unlocks capital is a CV that screams “I’ve done this before” or “I was trained by the best.”

This trend varies by country. Egypt is a fortress of native talent, with startups like Rabbit and Thndr built by Egyptians for Egypt. Nigeria is similar but with a growing number of high-value deals going to mixed teams. Meanwhile, Kenya’s ecosystem sees significant influence from expatriate and mixed teams like BURN Manufacturing and Umba, reflecting its status as a hub for international capital and NGOs.

Know Your Investor: A Field Guide to VC Preferences

Founders need to understand that not all money is the same. Different investor types are hunting for different founder profiles. The data reveals these realities: 

• Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) & Impact Funds: These investors show the strongest preference for mixed and all-foreign teams, especially in capital-intensive sectors like climate tech. An experienced foreign founder can feel like a safer pair of hands to manage a complex solar or e-mobility project.
• Global VCs (US & Europe): These funds are chasing 100x returns and need founders who think globally from day one. They happily back the strongest all-local teams (see QED’s investments in Nigerian fintech) to prove they have an ear to the ground, but they are most comfortable with mixed teams that feel familiar.
• Local & Regional African VCs: These are the ecosystem’s bedrock investors. They are the most versatile but have a clear bias toward all-local and mixed teams. They know the local talent and are best placed to nurture it, using their capital to help local champions go regional.
• Corporate VCs (CVCs) & Strategic Investors: This group isn’t just investing; it’s playing chess. Their chequebooks are open for teams — often mixed or foreign — that offer a strategic advantage. Suzuki’s venture arm backing a used-car marketplace with a Japanese co-founder isn’t a coincidence; it’s a strategy.

Systemic Blind Spots and Missed Opportunities

While this credential-driven approach may seem like a prudent risk-mitigation strategy, critics argue it fosters systemic biases that could stifle the continent’s long-term innovation potential.

The preference for founders from a narrow set of corporate backgrounds — Google, Jumia, McKinsey — creates an intellectual echo chamber. This leads to a proliferation of solutions tailored for urban, digitally connected populations, while foundational challenges in less glamorous sectors like water sanitation, low-tech manufacturing, and agricultural logistics are often overlooked. The most disruptive innovations — Egypt’s Fawry, Nigeria’s Interswitch — frequently come from individuals with deep, lived experience of a problem — a trucker who has spent decades navigating cross-border logistics, not a consultant who has only observed it. The current model systemically undervalues this expertise.

The Outlier’s Playbook: Five Ways to Hack the System 

So, what if you don’t have a Stanford degree or a Google career on your CV? The data offers a few alternative paths for the determined outlier.

1. Make Industry Experience Your ‘Ivy League’: If you can’t show a fancy tech background, prove you have 10 years of deep, “insider” experience in the local industry you’re disrupting. The founders of DigiSquad (South Africa) came from a major bank; the team at iSupply (Egypt) were insiders at a pharma distributor. They got funded because they knew the real-world problems better than anyone else.
2. Target Impact Investors: Sidestep the VCs chasing elite networks and target the DFIs and impact funds. If your startup provides clean energy (Kopa), financial inclusion (MyCredit), or agricultural improvements (Wami Agro), these investors are mandated to find you. Your impact is your pedigree.
3. Conquer a Niche: Fintech is a bloodbath of elite founders. Your advantage is in “unsexy” but essential sectors. Look at Cutstruct (construction tech) or OceansMall (seafood supply chain). They are solving fundamental problems in overlooked markets where deep local knowledge is the only currency that matters.
4. Use Accelerators as a Trojan Horse: For an unknown founder, a reputable accelerator like Flat6Labs, Village Capital, or Digital Africa is the ultimate validation. It’s a stamp of approval that gets you direct access to the investor networks you lack.
5. Seek Alternative Capital: VC equity isn’t the only game in town. Zimi (South Africa) used grant funding to get started. Umba (Nigeria/Kenya) used debt financing. If your business has revenue or assets, you can get capital from lenders who care more about your balance sheet than your background.

Access the complete dataset [here].